Creativity is an essential driver of continuous improvement and innovation. Yet, fear of failure and short-term pressures often discourage people from exploring creative ideas. So how to stimulate creativity in your team?
Encourage people to venture off the beaten path
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Create opportunities for people to express themselves freely, e.g. Organize collective brainstorming sessions, go around the table to hear from everyone in turn or use less intimidating suggestion boxes.
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Combat routine, e.g. Encourage people to try out new ways of doing things-even routine tasks. Switch around the habitual seating pattern in meetings!
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Allow people to allocate non-productive time to gain perspective, converse with one another, and test new ideas without particular concern for the outcome.
Structure and recognize creativity
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Listen to all ideas to encourage pure inventiveness as much as the resulting outcome, e.g. Set the example by suggesting offbeat ideas, talk about your failed experiments, etc.
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Give people autonomy by clearly stating objectives to avoid blocking their creative momentum.
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Recognize inventiveness and creativity, e.g. Take account of creativity when evaluating your subordinates.
Take action
Choose a moment when your level of energy is low to think creatively (10 min)
Paradoxically, tiredness helps our creativity by neutralizing our self-censorship reflexes.
Identify at what time of the day or during which activity your energy level is at its lowest.
Take advantage of this moment to freely think of a topic for which you need to be creative. Let the ideas flow freely, even if they seem awkward or unrealistic, and write them down.
Reconsider these ideas at a time when you have regained your capability to focus. This will give you the opportunity to rework them to make them implementable if possible.
Go to seek the opinion of your greatest contradictor (15 min)
Some people have the particular talent to push us to our limits… and force us to be creative!
When you fail to innovate on a specific topic, test your initial ideas on a person whose too sharp, critical mind you often resent.
Listen to his objections, but rather than responding, question him so that he further develops his reasoning.
Lean on these counter-arguments to explore with your team other ways of progressing. Whatever the outcome of this thinking process, you will facilitate creativity.
Experiment with new creativity techniques (30 min)
Creativity is not reserved to a few creative geniuses. There is a broad set of useful tools to foster it.
During your next team meeting, ask one of your team members to present a creativity technique. E.g.: the six hats method (each participant takes on a predefined role, such as the devil’s advocate, the optimist, the emotional, etc.); the method of the 5 whys; lateral thinking, etc.
Immediately put it into practice and assess the outcome: to which extent did this enable you to think out of the box?
Practical Tips
> Set the stage for creative thinking in your team
> Four steps to stimulate the creative spark
Find out more
> Stimulate creativity in the field
© Managéris